wounds. Inis put her back to the stone wall, lowered herself to the ground with Two cradled in her arms.
She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have, because she dreamed of fire and silver and Two’s eyes guiding her through the darkness. In the dream, she wasn’t afraid, though she was in pain. She knew where she was going and what she had to do.
No one can stop us when we fight, Two said.
No one can stop us because of what we fight for, Inis replied.
Much later, when she woke, Laisrean was sitting at her side. His right eye was a shuttered mess, a feverish stink seeping from beneath its bandage.
Unbidden, Inis reached to touch his face, tracing the prominent arch of his cheekbone to his strong jaw. She didn’t allow her hand to shake.
Two stirred in his sling when Laisrean shifted. Inis let her hand fall away, but Laisrean took her gently by the wrist, fingers pressed to her fluttering pulse.
“Wanted to give you something.” His voice was rough. With his free hand, he reached to tug at the knot in the leather cords around his wrist, then winced, pulling away as though he’d been burned.
The ends of his index and middle fingers were bloodied and raw.
They’d started to pull out his nails in Coward’s Silence.
Lucky, Inis thought. In a way, her brothers, her father, had been lucky to die before enduring weeks of torture.
“Let me help,” Inis said. Not a question, no coy protestation at the thought of a gift. They were beyond courtly artifices.
There was a time when she might have imagined Laisrean taking her hand to give her a lover’s token. The smell of roses would have been heavy in the air, the last breath of summer still clinging to the evening like vines to their stakes, the sky deepening pink and gold.
Miles underground and far from the Hill, Inis smelling of moat water and charred with lightning, Laisrean’s blood and rot tainting every breath, the gift was far from fantasy.
Expectations and reality. They somehow intersected.
Lais tapped one of the two leather cords braided around his wrist and Inis dutifully untied it. The knot had frayed from years of wear, and it took some doing to pick it apart, but she managed it with broken nails and stubborn will.
“Here.” Lais took the cord when she’d finished and clumsily looped it around her bare wrist. It was large enough to fit nearly double. Inis watched in silence. Her heart swelled with sorrow at the look of concentration on Lais’s face, the care it took for him to tie a simple knot.
An ember of her old anger glowed to life between her ribs.
If they ever met the Last again, she’d make him pay. Then, she’d make the Queen pay, too.
When the task was done, Lais held up his wrist with its single cord to match Inis’s. She took his hand in both of hers.
“I couldn’t save him. He told me, if it came to that, I shouldn’t try. Shouldn’t compromise myself.” Lais tipped his head back, staring at the bedrock above their heads. Inis didn’t need to ask who he meant. “It’s no excuse. I don’t want you to forgive me. I wanted you to know. . . .” A low grunt of pain, followed by a hissed sigh. “Thought I could make up for that with Malachy. Keep Morien’s anger on me, buy the boy some time. Yet we’re all missing bits and pieces.”
Suddenly wearier than she’d ever been, Inis rested her head on Lais’s shoulder. She couldn’t speak around the lump that had formed in her throat, but she wanted to show him it was all right. She understood: Tomman hadn’t told her his secrets not because he hadn’t trusted her. He’d kept them from her because he’d hoped to save her life that night, protect her from the massacre on the Hill.
She couldn’t blame her brother for the path he’d chosen, not when she wore his trust bracelet and now fought for the same cause he’d died to champion.
They sat together in silence, the darkness swaddling them, Laisrean’s breathing deepening, finally evening out. Inis thought he’d fallen asleep when, unexpectedly, he spoke again.
“Do you remember the last time we talked? Your family was returning from Ever-Land, and your sister had made us all wreaths of laurel flowers.” Lais’s eyes were closed, but the tight set of his mouth had eased. “When you got out of that carriage, crowned in pink and gold, I thought